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Serenade for strings in C major, Op 48

Introduction

Tchaikovsky composed his Serenade in the autumn of 1880, at the same time as the ‘1812’ Overture. After several years spent travelling in Europe in the aftermath of his disastrous marriage, he had finally returned to Russia. His mind was very much on a successor to the Fourth Symphony, but the work that emerged in November was scored for strings only. The Serenade—which was dedicated to Karl Albrecht, a cellist and fellow professor of Tchaikovsky’s at the Moscow Conservatory—was first played at a private concert there on 3 December 1880. Its public premiere took place on 30 October 1881 in St Petersburg at a concert sponsored by the Russian Musical Society, conducted by Eduard Nápravník, and it was repeated in Moscow in January the following year.

The Serenade has proved to be one of Tchaikovsky’s most enduringly popular works. It opens with a movement ‘in sonatina form’—i.e. without a development section. A slow introduction returns at the end. Then comes a waltz, one of Tchaikovsky’s favourite dance forms, whose opening theme is cunningly transposed and recast to form the opening theme of the slow third movement, an Elegy. The finale is sub-titled ‘Russian theme’. This theme, which appears after a quiet, slow introduction, turns out to be a transformation of the opening theme of the first movement, which then returns in its original, slow form in the coda to the whole work.